


A Visit by some Explorers

by Dragonkeeper14



Category: Myst Series
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:54:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27730345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragonkeeper14/pseuds/Dragonkeeper14
Summary: In which we see the working-out of one of the ideas discussed in my earlier piece 'Riven: Epilogue': namely, the identity of the D'ni, and to whom they were related on Earth.The story thus far: the budding hero 'Nathan Ransom' and his mentors Clipson and Traroth are on a journey across North America, to train Nathan for the coming struggle against the abductors of his kidnapped mother, Nicole, and their friend Jonas Work.We join our heroes, as they arrive in the Southwest…
Kudos: 1





	A Visit by some Explorers

They found themselves among fields of hay, fringed by extended woodlands of (periodically) snow-stunted cedars: the fields between, and the woods partly upon, or entirely mantling the five limbs of a calcite-and-iron mountain-range, which embraced the plain. Beyond this, southward, rolled waves upon waves of this same earth, clad thinly in cedars and thickly in brush and grasses, which gradually gave way to poplars; thence to scrubland; and finally to a true desert. Through all this lay the highway and railroad, flanked by power-lines and sun-cells; and on either side of these, were small ranches.

Nathan asked: 'Where are we now?!'.

Clipson answered: 'It looks like (you're right, Traroth) central Utah. Surely you've seen it before!'.

Said Nathan: 'Yeah; I just needed to get used to it, and figure things out'. 

Traroth answered: 'You won't have time, to get used to anything, or figure things out. We're steering into dangerous waters, when we get better under way'. 

Clipson added: 'He's right. Let's get going; for we're just outside of Sevier City, now, and we've a long walk ahead of us'.

On they went. 

They got among ruins of gigantic palaces;  
On either hand were ancient temples.  
Pillars and porticoes appeared at the piedmonts,  
And colossi of saints stood along the red walls:  
Taller than towers and twice as handsome;  
The names of their builders, were unknown to all.  
There were narrow domes and nine-tiered pagodas;  
Curtain-walls three cubits thick;  
Narthices and colonnades;  
And gigantic faces of guardian-figures,  
Warped and worn by the waste of ages.

Nathan asked: ‘Who built them?’.

Clipson answered: ‘The natives of this country, of course: the American Indigenes, as they are popularly named. Every tribe and nation among them, had ancestors here’.

Said Nathan: ‘But how? The indigenes used to live in the Stone Age, b’for the white man came’.

Clipson answered: ‘When the white man came, yes. But before the white man came; before Sultan Mehmed II. took Constantinople; when that city was still called Byzantium, the people here built cities, and they had tools enough to do it. They grew great in the land: as great as any people in the Near East, and in much the same ways. Here, as there, were great walled cities, teeming with people; dusty and noisy below, and sparkling bright above. Those palaces, temples, and statues, once thronged with courtiers and kings, priests and pilgrims, messengers and ambassadors, and countless citizens more. They throve and fought, traded and trafficked, challenged and cheated, kept promises and broke them, lived and died, and did all else people do, in cities’. 

Said Nathan: ‘But what happened to th’m? They were all in skin tents and clay houses and wooden lodges, with stone tools, even before the whites took over!’.

Traroth said: ‘He’ll never learn’.

Clipson answered: ‘Civilizations rise; and like all that rises, they fall. The fall from the highest civilization, is unto the lowest primitive state. Nothing remains, but some monument or other: a ziggurat, a wall, a fortress, a few pyramids, or a henge. The people scratch a living from the wild, because they have long forgotten how to cultivate food or refine metal; and, given enough time, they forget that their ancestors lived any other way. Such was the state of the Native Americans, when the conqueror came. 

Civilization persisted in the South Americas, because famines and ruins in the North, did not touch the South. The North relapsed into the Stone Age; and they had just begun to rebuild their ancient glory, when the conqueror invaded. Depend on it, dear boy: if you find a people in a Stone Age, chances are, their ancestors were city-dwellers; and almost every pristine landscape was inhabited, long ago’.

Said Nathan: ‘I know; and I heard, the indigenes were taken out a’ their lands, to make r’m for the National Parks and stuff’. 

Clipson answered: ‘So it is. On we go!’, and on they went. They passed that night in a village beside the Arches Park. Here stood great upright slabs of red-and-white sandstone, formed and buried when dinosaurs walked the Earth, 

Sealed long ago by the softer sand around them,  
Freed thereafter when it fell away,  
Worn over time by wind and water,  
Into graceful arches of gigantic size,  
Into portals ever open upon the peaks’-pane,

which now stood above the floor of the desert. After a late luncheon in the nearby village, our heroes set off again; but they had not gone far, before they saw a curious darkening in the sky ahead of them. Said Traroth: ‘That is surely a desert rainstorm, and I can’t fly around or through it’.

Said Clipson: ‘Let’s get under cover, then’.

At that, our friends hid in the lee of a range of hills. Moments later, the heavens opened:

Clouds burst in a clash of thunder;  
Rain rattled down on the reddish stone.  
Canyons filled with crag-carving currents;  
Vale and waterway whitened with foam.  
The cloud-drops fell in a clattering clamour;  
Heavenly waters hammered down hard.  
Crags came loose and crashed into the currents;  
Rocks went rolling down river-beds.  
Brimming brooks ran brightest crimson;  
Swirling streams filled with scarlet sand.  
Flat land filled with feathery froth;  
Basins brimmed with bursting bubbles.  
The wasteland was wrapped in a watery veil;  
The red land donned a robe of silver.  
Lands and their limits were lost in confusion;  
The world was one watery wavering mass!

Traroth alighted, and the three companions hid in a cave. When they recovered their breath and tended their bruises, Nathan asked: ‘Now what’ll we do?’.

Said Clipson: ‘Now, we see whether this cave has another exit. If it has, we’ll go through it, and evade the flood by the back-door. If not, we’ll simply wait at the front for the rain to let up, and fight our way out if the Dark Order are waiting for us’, and in they went. 

Further in, the tunnel became a vast cavern, centered upon a chill pale lake lit by countless bioluminiscent micro-organisms. On all sides of the lake, the walls were terraced, and on every level were stone houses, much like those in the desert.

Said Traroth: ‘There stands Dineh, the greatest of the Indigenous cities. It was built by the ancestors of the Navajo people, centuries ago; and abandoned when the plague came’.

Said Clipson: ‘He’s right, my boy. You know already, a common virus among one people, may be an all-slaying pandemic among another. So it was here, when your forefathers landed in this country. The city of Dineh, and all the cities of this land, were emptied of people, and have never been reclaimed. The people still live around here, but they’ve never come back. 

In ancient times, Dineh was a meeting-place for politics, trade, war, and alliances. As you can see, it boasted buildings five storeys high, communal plumbing, highways, and farmlands enough to feed 15,000 people, or more. A thousand years ago, came a drought, a famine, and plagues, such as the locals had never known. The people abandoned the city; and in time, forgot it. No-one still lived who knew how, or even where to build another; so they went back to the Stone Age. Other cities on this continent, have much the same history; but Dineh was the greatest on the Western face of the Great Divide. I believe some archaeologists work here, on sufferance by the natives’.

Even as he spoke, someone called behind them: ‘What are you doing here? No visitors on the dig-site!’, and in came a dozen archaeologists with sieves and notepads in their hands.

Said Clipson: ‘We were thrown into the entrance above by a desert storm; and I know you, Ayesha Bylilly, and you know me. You know I’m not one to enter and break. I’m here by accident, as you can see, and we’ll be out of your way in no time, so don’t let’s waste time arguing Whether we ought have come in it. We’re here, rather against everyone’s better judgement, and we’ll soon be gone, and that’s the whole of the matter’.

Said Ayesha: ‘What are you doing in these parts anyway, A.E. Clipson?’.

He answered: ‘We are on our way to the Yucatán Peninsula; and, as you can see, we’ve been badly side-tracked by the storm. This is my student, Nathan Ransom. We’re on our way to rescue his mother, and Jonas Work, whom you know, from the secret society of the Dark Order’. 

Said Ayesha: ‘It is no more than foolishness, to go alone’.

Clipson answered: ‘Who would you send with us? Whom else would you send instead? But let’s not argue among ourselves. You know me, Ayesha, and you know better. I’d as soon handle this personally while we still can’. 

With that, our friends made their way out of the cavern and into the sunset landscape without, where  
Fiery flags flew far and wide,  
Purple-gold pennants appeared on all sides.  
Soaring silks of scarlet and crimson,  
Weather-might whirled in waves over winds’-way,  
and made their way into town, where the locals still jumped for joy and their children rolled in the mud, to celebrate the coming of rain.

Said Ayesha: ‘Where will you go now?’.

Clipson answered: ‘First, to town, for a night’s sleep; then on the morrow, on the road again. I am very sorry not to take you with us’.

Said Ayesha: ‘I’m sorry not to go. Is there anything else I can do for you?’.

Clipson answered: ‘Tell everyone about our errand, and let the whole world know. Sooner or later, someone should hear who can be of use. I know, normal practice is to keep things quiet, but that’s the last thing we should do about problems like this. If the matter does prove too big for us, we need all the help we can get’. 

Said Ayesha: ‘I’ll do my best; I can no more’.

Said Clipson: ‘To pass the word along, should be more than enough, dear lady’. 

After that, they bade her farewell and passed the night in town.

**Author's Note:**

> 'Ayesha Bylilly', of course, is Yeesha of the original series. (The source-material never gave her a surname, so I picked one from a list of common Navajo surnames. Any real Navajo who read this, are at liberty to correct me.)
> 
> Clipson is not the original PC;–– or may not be. He is certainly one of many players who got to know the family. 
> 
> 'The secret society of the Dark Order' is a generic sort of name for the forces of Evil, but in this case refers to the kidnappers. 
> 
> Any questions? Comments? Suggestions? Criticism? Let me know!


End file.
